John Tesh must be Scrooge McDuck’ing his way to an early retirement.
The famed composer of “Roundball Rock,” the earworming jingle most associated with NBC’s NBA telecasts from the ’90s, isn’t keeping his song exclusive to the new-age NBA on NBC broadcasts. It appears Fox Sports will continue to use it on its college basketball coverage, too.
As the college hoops season debuted on Monday night, fans heard the familiar tune on FS1.
This is nothing new. For years, Fox has utilized “Roundball Rock” for its college basketball broadcasts, which hasn’t always been a popular choice among a certain era of basketball fans. Tesh’s song is generally remembered as the soundtrack to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls dynasty. It doesn’t really hit the same when it’s St. John’s taking on Quinnipiac.
Some would argue that it was better to have the song around in any capacity during NBC’s 23-year break from the NBA than to only hear it in the form of nostalgia-bait social media clips and the famous Saturday Night Live sketch.
Considering the tune’s return to the NBA on NBC has been well-documented, it’s an interesting editorial choice by Fox to keep it around for college hoops. Generally, networks want to use a song that viewers will associate with their own broadcast of that sport. But no one hears “Roundball Rock” and thinks, “Oh boy, I can’t wait to watch this college basketball game on Fox!”
Perhaps “Roundball Rock” transcends that desire. If you have it, you use it. Period. End of discussion.
You have to imagine the person most thrilled about all of this is Tesh, who is laughing all the way to the bank as two separate networks continue to throw money at him.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.